Recently, I've been driving the ball quite well...for me. Not a whole lot of distance, but enough if I move up in tee boxes, and dead accurate where I'm aiming. But you know the golfers' dilemma, I'm sure. Enough distance with the driver is never enough distance with the driver. So off I dove into Google and YouTube and my Golf Magazine, looking for "Best drivers of 2021" and "Longest drivers of 2021" and Longest and Best and most Forgiving Drivers of...you guessed it...2021". And I began researching and compiling and comparing and cataloguing and inspecting, rejecting, ejecting, and deflecting every brand and every permutation and combination known to humankind. If there was ever a driver produced by even the most obscure clubmaker, I got to know about it--from the Cadillac models of the pros to the chinsey, cheap models you hear about only through email where the guarantee ends the moment you open the package after delivery.
Finally, though, I got so blown out from all this information age glut, that a bit of dizziness seeped into my head, the room got a little blurry, and I took a dose of Chopin from my classical music station, eating a king-size bowl of my favorite vanilla cashew milk alternative ice cream. Yeah, I'm one of those. And what I realized was the main thing all the reviewers used to test these clubs was TrackMan, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
So I made an appointment at my nearby Golf Galaxy, and in a couple days met Jeff, a friendly chap a few younger than I who had me hit a few of the latest and greatest models...you guessed it...from 2021. Once the TrackMan was up and running, I commenced to swinging, with as much gusto as I could muster. And...I basically found out how slow a slow swinger of the driver I am. Cancer, heart failure, and age have taken their toll. I then compared the results of the big bombers with my about five-year-old trusty Ping G30, and we found...almost no difference at all on all scales. In fact, the Ping came out a bit higher and better on some key measurements, the main ones, of course, being distance and direction.
So, Jeff, being of much integrity, recommended I save myself the 500 or so bucks, put a senior shaft with a new grip on my Ping, and, thankfully, forfeit having my wife see the $500 charge on our credit card invoice. He predicted I'd probably pick up a few yards, along with the same accuracy as I've been getting. Bingo: I was probably his happiest customer to have exited the store that day.
So the moral of the story is, as always, KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid (made famous by the U.S. Navy in 1960). My sincerest apologies (yeah, right!) to the big golf club manufacturers, who insist on coming out almost twice a year now with the latest New, Improved Model drivers, taking a cue from car and breakfast cereal companies. I'll keep my now old, Improved Ping, and work on my short game instead.
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Congrats to Zander Schauffele, now an Olympic Gold Medal winner, his first "major" win. He showed great resilience by hanging tough against a final round onslaught by Rory Sabbatini, representing Slovakia, who fired a 61 to come from seven behind to take the Silver, losing by only a stroke. There was a seven-way tie for Bronze, which was eventually taken by C.T. Pan from Taiwan, the lowest ranking player among the seven.
Ha! "Drive for show; putt for dough." Yep. Work on the short game.